says; the question is: what kind of public does it create? [The End of Education, p.18].
Faced with this reality, those of us in education need to do some serious thinking about what kind of public we have a moral obligation to create and how we should go about creating it. At present, educators in public schools have little say about what kind of citizens those schools will create. The decision has been co-opted by politicians and corporate leaders. But that reality may be changing due to the low regard the public now has for many politicans and corporate leaders.
Most educators would, I think, agree that we do have an obligation to society in this matter of creating a public--an obligation that includes but goes beyond merely carrying out the narrow utilitarian initiatives of politicians and corporate leaders that focus exclusively on producing future employees with marketable skills.
While no educational leader would argue that education shouldn’t have as one of its goals to teach students the knowledge and skills that they will need to be productively employed in the marketplace, few would accept that as the only purpose of an education. James Moffett in The Universal Schoolhouse, in words that resonate with Postman’s, says that “education should… fashion a special culture that will correct and complement society.” [p. 57]
What’s Missing?
What’s missing in the current educational agenda is a sense of the higher purpose of education, the recognition that schools shouldn’t just train students to make a living, but should teach them how to lead meaningful lives. British economist E.F. Schumacher recognized this. He said that the task of education should be, first and foremost, “the transmission of ideas of value of what to do with our lives.” He called an education that focuses primarily on producing ‘know how’ “a mere potentiality, and unfinished sentence.” [Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, p.p. 74 – 75].
The hollowness of our current approach of focusing education on preparing students for the job market is not lost on students. It leaves them with a sense of “is that all there is?" It is the reason so many of them drop out of school before finishing and why so many others sit passively in classes struggling to endure education rather than learning to love it.
Young people, like the rest of us, are looking for ideas that give meaning to their lives. They recognize that man is meant to work to live, but not live to work. The words of those who trumpet the virtues of 24/7 sound discordant to them. They want an education that helps them sort through their various longings, desires and urges. They want an education that helps them answer the questions: Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? What is beauty? What are love, happiness, honor, virtue?
What Kind of Public Do We Need?
This is a compelling question that calls for thoughtful discussion in school communities. Many of these discussions may have taken place in different schools and the answers are described in the schools’ mission statements and core values. Invariably mission statements speak about preparing students for purposeful lives as informed and contributing citizens. So let’s start there.
John Donne reminded us four centuries ago that no man is an island. Yet too often in pursuit of personal happiness people act as though they are separate islands and that the problems of our fellow men are not our problem. A quality education should prepare
students not only to have a sense of themselves and who they are in the world but should teach them to look beyond themselves to the needs of the community [local, national and global]. We seem to be losing our sense of community at a time when the world is shrinking and when what happens in one place, no matter how far away, is bound to affect us all. A good part of the answer to the questions: "Why am I here?" and "What is the purpose of my life?" may be found in the following Sufi story.
Past the seeker as he prayed came the hungry and the lame, the downtrodden, distressed and depressed. And dropping deeper into prayer the seeker cried out: “Oh dear God, how can you look upon such misery and not do something?” And down in the depths of his soul the seeker heard a voice that said: “I did do something—I made you.”
This story helps us to understand the kind of public we need to create. It does not suggest that we need a public made up of only doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and non-governmental organizations, but that we have a public that respects each individual as a person of dignity and worth. It is a public in which individuals are capable of looking beyond their personal needs to the needs of the greater community when that becomes necessary. Moreover it is a story whose message appeals to the deepest aspirations of young people.
The kind of public we need is a public which seeks to achieve balance in life. Work is balanced with rest; the demands of the workplace balanced with the demands of family, friends and community; and the needs of the individual and community are correctly identified and balanced with the needs of future communities.
Decades ago C.S. Lewis pointed out that men used to create products because other men needed them. Now we create products and carry on expensive advertising campaigns to convince men they do need them. With our planet groaning under the strain of our intemperance and in danger of imploding we need a public which will take to heart Gandhi’s comment that “Earth has enough to satisfy man’s need, but not man’s greed.” (Schumacher, p.31)
The kind of public we require will need to know how to keep other things in balance as well. Competition will have to be balanced with cooperation and collaboration, science with the humanities, academics with the arts, and ‘know how’ with the study of metaphysics. Knowing how to do something without being able to determine why we are doing it or whether or not we should be doing it at all is a prescription for disaster. Finally, although some are reluctant to recognize this, the public we need will have to learn to balance physical and social development with moral and spiritual growth and development.
“The philosophy in the classroom of this generation”, said Abraham Lincoln, “is the philosophy of the government in the next”. Neil Postman takes Lincoln’s observation a step further. He says that the philosophy of the classroom of this generation will determine the philosophy of the public of the next. If we want good government, wise leadership and a kind and caring community, then educators and educational leaders must create it by attending to the kind of public we are creating in our classrooms today. Recognize it or not; accept it or not, education doesn’t just serve a public; it creates one.
What do you think? Your thoughts are welcomed.
This blog is an excerpt from my book What They Never Told Me in Principals’ School published by Rowman and Littlefield www.rowmaneducation.com